Dress Me Like A Clown
by Taste of Violets
Summary: It was right to be cruel, to be too sharp to touch, out there against the Bat & the cops & the loonies. Nobody could blame Ivy for that. But Harley was different. She believed in things Ivy had quit believing in years ago. Things like Ivy. Femslash.
1. All Our Lovers

Dress Me Like A Clown

By taste of violets

Disclaimer: Everything Batman belongs to DC Comics/Warner Brothers. The song "Dress Me Like a Clown," which inspired this story, is the property of the band Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. I don't own any of it.

Note: This fic is set in the DC animated universe and takes place about a year after the end of the episode "Harley and Ivy," after which it diverts from canon entirely. As far as geography goes, for the purposes of this fic, Gotham City is New York City.

::

part one: all our lovers

_(Tonight we'll leave all our lovers behind_

_and try to live a quiet life_

_My love has dressed me like a clown)_

::

Ivy hadn't been expecting the phone to ring. She wouldn't have bet against the probability of a siren outside the window, or a voice yelling outside the door a second before a cop kicked it down (it would have been easy, too—the lock was broken). But waking up to the phone ringing at two in the morning was a possibility she hadn't considered.

She sat up in the creaky, probably bug-infested bed and stared at the telephone by the neon glow coming in through the gap in the threadbare curtains. The phone was an ancient rotary model, an apt match for this fleabag motel that seemed to have sprung up like a weed around 1975 and then been immediately abandoned. The phone's shrill clamor continued unabated for eight rings, then stopped. Ivy lay back down onto the pillow and closed her eyes.

Five minutes later, the ringing started again. This time Ivy ignored it for eleven rings before it stopped.

Ten minutes later, by the time the phone had sounded the thirteenth ring of its latest effort, Ivy was ready to give in. Her main worry was the cops, and it made no sense for them to phone when they could just as easily break the door down. Whoever was calling, they couldn't be anything but trouble, but that didn't bother Ivy much these days. She might as well find out what kind of trouble it was.

She picked up the bulky receiver. "Hello?"

"Red?" came a small, plaintive voice from the other end. "Is that you?"

Ivy almost dropped the phone. "_Harley_? Where are you?"

"What are you doin' all the way out here?" Harley demanded, ignoring the question. "I tried to find you at your old place, and there was nobody there. _And_ one of your plants almost ate my leg."

"Sorry."

"I had to get Catwoman to tell me where you were, otherwise I never woulda found you. How come _she_ knew where you were and I didn't?"

"Because I asked her to take care of some of my plants just before I left. Harley, where _are_ you?"

"Here. Your hotel. Come down and let me up, the guy at the desk keeps sayin'—"

"You're in the _lobby_?" Ivy almost shouted into the phone. "Where anyone could _hear_ you?"

"You must think I'm pretty stupid," Harley's voice came sullenly over the crackling connection. "I'm on the pay phone in the parking lot. I got the desk guy to give me the number for your room before he started gettin' suspicious and kicked me out. Willya come and let me up? He says if I don't leave he's gonna call the cops."

"Oh good grief." Just what Ivy needed. She hadn't expected any trouble around here. She'd never stayed at this particular flophouse before, but she'd spent her fair share of time on the lam, and these places were all the same. A wreck of a place for wrecks of people, just off a lonely stretch of highway on the outside edge of the city. It was obvious that nobody here was up to any good, but that was fine, since nobody here cared what anybody else was up to. That was the way it worked.

At least, usually it was. But apparently Harley had done something to rouse this night clerk's inner Batman. Everybody had one, it seemed lately. Citizen justice. It was making Ivy's life a whole lot harder. Citizen injustice had always been more her style.

"All right, Harl, hold on. I'll be right down." Ivy hung up the phone, put on a quick layer of lipstick, and ran a hand through her hair as she threw on her coat. She walked down the hall and the narrow, bare staircase to the lobby.

The clerk at the desk gave her a strange look when she got there. It wasn't the glare she had expected, but he didn't look happy either. "Some girl was here who was looking like trouble," he said. "Asked me what room her friend with the long red hair and cute figure was stayin' in. I guess that's you?"

"So I've been told," Ivy replied with a practiced smile. "I'm sure we'll be able to work this out momentarily…if you'll just excuse me."

As soon as she stepped out into the parking lot, she dropped the mask. "Harley! What the hell is going—"

"_Red_!" Harley squealed, catapulting herself into Ivy's arms like a blonde, pigtailed heat-seeking missile. "I haven't seen you in _ages_! Didja miss me? How come ya never came to visit me in Arkham?"

"Because I didn't think it made sense to go back to a place I'd only broken out of three weeks earlier. How did you end up back in there, Harl? I seem to remember going out of my way to make sure we _both_ got out. Are you sure you're clear on what an 'escape' actually is?"

Harley let go of Ivy and took a step backwards, looking uncomfortable. "Aw, Ivy, don't be mad at me. You know when I got out I had to go see Mister J, and then…"

"Oh, 'and then.' This is going to be the good part, I can tell."

"And then I ended up stayin' with him, 'cause he really needed me, I just knew it. And he had this plan, and it was a _good_ plan, too; it woulda worked if it hadn't been for just a couple of little details—"

"And someone had to take the fall, and it could never be him, of course. So you're the one stuck holding the bag while he's making a clean getaway, and before you know it Renee Montoya's dragging you back to the padded cell while her fat-ass partner kicks you in the shins. Is that how it went?"

Harley hung her head like a child being scolded. "Well…yeah. That's about right."

Ivy sighed. "Well, that must have been a little more than a year ago. What'd they do, let you out for good behavior? A year's a pretty quick turnaround for getting rehabilitated, but I guess Arkham isn't too picky."

"You makin' fun of me?"

"Do I _look_ like I'm having fun? Tell me what happened, Harley."

"Mister J busted me out." Harley hesitated. "Then he busted some other stuff."

"What?" Ivy took a good look at Harley's face for the first time. At the same moment, a semi rumbled by on the highway behind them, and the glare of its headlights briefly illuminated Harley's features. Her left eye and cheekbone were swallowed by one massive bruise.

"Oh my God!" Ivy laid her fingertips on the purple swelling next to Harley's eye, making Harley wince. So _this_ was why the clerk was going to call the police—when he said Harley looked like trouble, he meant that she was _in_ it. "The Joker did this to you?"

"He's done worse," Harley said bravely. Then suddenly her face crumpled, and she looked like a little girl on the verge of tears. "_Yes_, Mister J did it, an', an' I didn't wanna stay with him anymore if he was g-gonna treat me that way, but I didn't know w-w-where else to go…"

"Oh, Harl…"

"So I went to your old place, the old hazard site where I stayed with you the last time, but you w-weren't there anymore," Harley said through sniffles, "s-so I had to go to every hideout in town until finally Catwoman told me where you were, an', an' how come you're here anyway, huh?"

"Word got around that I had gone back to my old place. The cops were going to come; I had to make a run for it." Ivy pushed back a lock of blonde hair from her friend's forehead and felt a surge of fierce protectiveness. She wrapped an arm around Harley's shoulders and hugged her tight. "Harley, I'm not letting you go back to that son of a bitch."

"I don't wanna go back," Harvey mumbled into Ivy's shoulder.

"Oh really? That would be a change, if it were true." Ivy let go of Harley. "Come on, let's go inside. You're staying with me."

Ivy led the way back into the motel lobby, where before the clerk could object, she said, "Don't worry, darling, it's all taken care of." She kissed him gently, an almost motherly peck on the lips. His eyes unfocused. He nodded dumbly.

"Gosh, Red," Harley said from behind her, impressed. "Haven't seen anyone do _that_ in a while."

"Yeah, well, welcome back." They walked up the creaking staircase and into room 237. "Here we are."

Harley blinked as she walked inside. "Gee, it's kind of a dump, don't you think?"

Ivy rolled her eyes. "I didn't pick it based on its rating in Frommer's guide."

"I know, but I think I'd get depressed in here after a while." Harley sat down on the sagging bed and stared around the room. "How long you been livin' here?"

"Almost two weeks. I probably can't stay here much longer without somebody finding out, though. Especially if Catwoman has been running her mouth." Ivy was rummaging around in her suitcase, which she had never bothered to unpack. "I wish I hadn't told her anything. I don't trust her to keep her trap shut if there's something in it for her."

Harley looked hurt. "You didn't want her to tell _me_?"

"Oh Harley, don't look at me like that. Of course I meant the cops, not you." Ivy sat on the edge of the bed facing Harley, a jar of green ointment in her hand. "Now hold still. This should start healing the bruises and keep the swelling down." She started dabbing the goo around Harley's eye with her fingers.

"Ow! It stings!"

"Knock it off. Big baby." She rubbed some of the homemade balm gently over Harley's swollen eyelid. "So how did you get here, anyway?"

"Stole a car."

"Oh, _Harley_. Really?"

"Hey! Where do you get off actin' like Miss Morality all of a sudden? Like you've never stolen anything before!"

"It's just not the smartest move first thing out of Arkham, that's all. Cars _can_ be tracked, you know."

"I'm not worried," said Harley, although her expression said otherwise. "Anyway, how'd _you_ get out here? You didn't bring your car?"

"I kissed a taxi driver."

"You got it so easy."

"Yeah, lucky me." Ivy put a last dab around Harley's black eye. "There. All done. It should start feeling better already."

"Thanks." Harley looked around the room. "Hey, where'd all your plants go?"

"Well, obviously, I could hardly take them all in the taxi with me. I have a couple of the smaller rare ones growing in the bathtub right now. The rest I left back in Gotham. Most of them can take care of themselves by now, and the others I paid Catwoman to look after." Ivy realized that Harley was staring at her. "What?"

"It's not like you to leave your plants behind," Harley said, almost accusingly.

"Come on, Harley, you know how we live. When you're on the run, you have to make hard choices sometimes."

"I guess." Harley was quiet for a second. "Do you miss them?"

"Sure. Sort of."

Ivy was looking away, but somehow Harley caught her gaze and held it. Slowly and deliberately she asked, "Did you miss _me_?"

For a second, nothing moved. There was a strange sort of humming in the air. Ivy could hear it deep in her ears, a thrumming like an electric current. The sound of potentiality. She took a deep breath.

Then a truck barreled loudly down the road outside, and the moment was broken. "Just kidding!" Harley said cheerfully. "Gee, I'm exhausted. Can it be bedtime?"

"Of course," said Ivy quickly. "You can turn out the light; I'm just going to wash my face, and I'll be right there. Try not to kick me too much this time."

"Don't worry, I sleep like a rock!" Harley sang, snuggling down under the bed covers as Ivy went into the bathroom.

"Uh-huh."

As she washed up at the old chipped sink, Ivy stared at her reflection in the grimy mirror. Somehow it didn't look like her. The longer she looked, the less she recognized her own features. She blinked and shook her head to clear it. She went back into the bedroom and lay down under the covers next to Harley.

She felt like all she had done was shut her eyes and open them a second later, but when Ivy woke up the alarm clock's glowing digits told her it was 4:48 AM. She wondered blurrily what had woken her; then she wondered if she was still dreaming. The ceiling was illuminated by bars of light, and everything felt strange and unreal.

Then she remembered Harley. She rolled over in bed, but the space beside her was empty. "Harl?" she said muzzily. She sat up.

Harley was sitting perched on the wide inner sill of the room's only window, her feet drawn up in front of her. She had opened the curtains and was looking out toward the streetlights and occasional passing cars, as headlights briefly illuminated the room and then faded away. She still wore the same blouse and jeans she had shown up in, but she had taken her hair out of its pigtails, and now it hung loose around her shoulders. The neon glow of the vacancy sign made a faint pink halo at the top of her head.

Ivy got out of bed and went to stand next to Harley. She combed through her friend's hair with her fingers. "Hey," she said, voice husky from slumber. "Can't you sleep?"

Harley still faced the window. Up close, Ivy could see the bruise on Harley's face reflected in the glass.

When Harley finally spoke, her voice was so tiny it was barely audible.

"Oh Ivy," she whispered. "I've never felt so blue in my entire life."

Suddenly Ivy's chest was full of an aching tightness, and there was something like a rock in her throat. She wrapped her arms around Harley's shoulders from behind. "Shh," she said, because she couldn't think of anything better. "Shhh. Baby. Don't."

"Ivy, are you crying?"

Ivy buried her face in Harley's shoulder. "No."

They were still for a long while. Outside, the trucks drove past on their before-dawn errands. The eastern horizon was almost beginning to brighten.

Finally Harley said, "How come you were so nice to the guy at the desk before?"

"Hmm?"

"The desk guy. When you kissed him, you didn't make him do anything bad. You just made him forget. And you kissed him _nicely_. How come?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess because…" Ivy realized that she did know, but she didn't know whether she could say it. The words seemed to stick in her throat as she forced them out.

"Because he had been worried about you. I didn't want to hurt someone who had been nice to you."

"He wasn't nice! He was gonna call the cops!"

"Only because he cared about you."

Harley shifted a little in Ivy's arms. Then she said, "_You_ never used to care about anybody."

Ivy didn't have an answer. Her reflection in the windowpane looked ghostly and foreign. She held Harley a little tighter.

"I think you've changed, Red," Harley said softly. Pulling out of Ivy's arms, she turned around on the sill at last. She took Ivy's hands and held them as she faced her. Her eyes were big and blue and full of shadows, and her face was lit strangely by the glow of the vacancy sign. "I wish I could change, too."

Ivy pulled Harley down from the windowsill to her feet. She put an arm around Harley's waist and kissed her on the cheek, which she had done plenty of times before.

"Red," Harley said.

"Shh." Ivy kissed her on the corner of her mouth next to her lips, just inside her dimple, as Harley's eyelashes fluttered like a moth's wings against her skin. She had done that before, too.

Ivy heard Harley let out a sigh, and she drew Harley nearer, to do what she had never done before. Her heart was pounding as she felt Harley's breath on her face. Every cell in her body felt alive and bright, as if she had been suddenly filled with sunlight. There had never been so little space between them as Ivy closed her eyes and leaned in—

Harley turned away, so that Ivy's lips met her cheek. She took a step backwards. "So where are you gonna go now?" she asked, as if nothing had happened.

Ivy felt as though something soft and green and growing within her chest had been uprooted. Anything, she found herself thinking desperately, she would have given up anything—money, power, reputation, it could all go to hell—if only Harley had said not _you_, but _we_.

And it must have been that desperation that made Ivy say, in the voice of the strange, unknown self she had seen in the mirror and the windowpane reflection, in the voice of someone she hadn't realized, until now, that she had become: "You know, we don't have to stay in Gotham."

For a long, precarious second, Harley stared at Ivy with her eyes wide and her mouth half-open; and in panic Ivy thought: I went too far, I said too much, it was my only chance and there's no hope now—

And then Harley said, "We don't?", and Ivy felt the entire world open up.

"Listen, Harl," she said, the words coming out quick and low now, "I've been thinking, what if we left? What if we just left all of this, forever? Gotham, and the Bat, and the Joker, and everything? What if we just put our backs to it all and got the hell out of here?"

"But Ivy, where are we gonna go where they don't know us? The whole state's looking for you. And me." There was a suggestion of pride in Harley's voice on that point.

"I'm not talking about going upstate. I'm talking about a whole lot farther. Somewhere out west. Somewhere people won't know to look for us. Where nobody will know our faces."

Harley looked unsure. "Gee, I dunno, Red. I've never been much farther west than Newark."

Ivy grabbed Harley's shoulders; she felt like shaking her. "Harley, don't you get it? We could be free—we _are_ free! There's a whole world that's not Gotham. Forget Newark, what about California?"

"_California_?"

"Anywhere. It doesn't matter, we can go anywhere. You've got a car, right? I've got a little money. We'll cut our hair—change our names, get new jobs—nobody will find us—"

"_California_," Harley repeated, like it was a magic word.

Ivy felt euphoric; part of her knew this was insane, impossible, but she couldn't have stopped talking if she'd wanted to. "Where it's always sunny, and there's no snow and no Gotham winters, just palm trees and beaches, Harley, just think about it—"

"If we left everything…" Harley was biting her lip like she was thinking something over. She looked at Ivy. "Do you mean we'd go straight?"

Ivy barely hesitated. "If you want to, Harl, we can do it."

"We can do it!" Harley repeated, looking dazzled, and Ivy knew they were both feeling it now, the sensation that the world had blossomed for them like a flower. They stared at each other in the growing light of dawn. The sun was rising over the highway outside Gotham.

Harley put her arms around Ivy and moved her lips to Ivy's ear.

"Let's go," she whispered.

::

Forty minutes later they were tearing down the interstate in Harley's stolen car, suitcases in the trunk, Ivy at the wheel and feeling electric. Harley, in the passenger seat, was trying to cut Ivy's hair as Ivy drove. It wasn't going particularly well. Ivy didn't mind.

"…and since it's so warm there all your plants will grow right outside," Harley said as she lopped off another four inches and brushed them off Ivy's back onto the floor, "all new ones so you won't have to miss your old ones, and they'll keep you company while I'm at work if you get lonely."

"I won't get lonely."

"Well, just in case." Another giant snip. "Oops."

"'Oops'?"

"Well, you keep moving your head!"

Ivy laughed. It still felt strange to laugh, after a year without seeing Harley, a year without any laughter at all. "Forget about it. When do I get to cut _your_ hair?"

"Not yet."

"Come on."

"When we get to California, do it then. Hey, can I turn on the radio?" Without waiting for an answer, Harley turned the dial and started scanning through stations. Static, more static, faint orchestral sounds, then:

"…Thank you, Mike. That was Mike Rodriguez with the weather for WNGC, Gotham's radio news network. And now, breaking news: the criminal psychopath known as the Joker is reportedly at the center of a hostage situation developing at the Gotham City harbor. Details are still unclear, but at least four hostages appear to be in the Joker's custody, according to eyewitnesses—"

"Turn it off, Harl," Ivy said softly.

She had been watching Harley out of the corner of her eye. Harley's bruised face was nearly as white as she painted it for heists, but her expression was strangely composed. She reached out and switched off the radio almost before Ivy spoke.

"_Hostages_," she said with disgust. "Talk about going downhill."

But she didn't speak again for the next twenty miles.

When they passed a sign for a rest area, Harley finally said, "Can we stop here for a minute? I wanna use the bathroom."

Ivy took the exit as Harley asked, but after pulling into the parking lot, she grabbed her friend's arm with one hand before Harley could open the door.

"Hey! What gives?"

Ivy wasn't looking at Harley; she felt like she couldn't. She parted her lips but didn't know how to say what she needed to say, not without sounding desperate. "You're going to call the Joker, aren't you?" she finally muttered.

"What?"

Ivy looked Harley in the face, gripping her wrist. "You're going to call him, aren't you? You're going to tell that creep where we are. Don't do it, Harl." She choked on an unfamiliar word: "Please."

Harley's big blue eyes were wide with surprise, but feigned or genuine, Ivy couldn't tell. "Oh come on! Don'tcha trust me, Red?"

She wanted to. Oh, she wanted to. But she had had so little practice.

"Pammy," Harley said in her sweetest tones. "Come on. Lemme go."

She wanted to.

"I'm never calling him again," said Harley. "And even if I _wanted_ to—which I don't—but even if I did, I don't have any money for the phone. Look." With her free hand, she pulled her jeans pockets inside out. Not even lint fell out. "See? Plenty of nothin'." She smiled at Ivy. "Now will you let me go?"

"I—sure." Ivy released Harley's wrist, ashamed in the glow of Harley's smile. "Go ahead."

As Harley skipped away, Ivy stared after her, then lowered her head onto her arms on the steering wheel. What had she turned into? Who _was_ this person, angry and scared of the stupidest things, acting like a prison guard with the one girl who meant anything to her? What was she doing, driving cross-country on an insane whim in a stolen car, leaving behind her plants—her causes—everything she had ever cared about?

Everything but one.

She sat up and stared blankly out the window, wishing she could disappear. Harley was making a fool of her, or she was making a fool of herself, she didn't know and it made no difference. She was a clown, as surely as Harley was, as maybe all lovers were. You didn't need the costume or the paint. As easily as the Joker had done it to Harley, now Harley had made a clown out of her.

But at least Harley was in _her_ passenger seat now, not the Joker's. And Ivy would be damned if she would let her go again.

The passenger side door opened, and Harley hopped in. "I'm back! And with just as little money as I left with. For once," she added as an afterthought.

Suddenly Ivy leaned over and wrapped an arm tight around Harley's shoulders. "Hey! What's that for?" Harley said, but she sounded pleased as Ivy pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek. At the same time, Ivy quietly slid home the lock on Harley's door.

"Nothing," said Ivy, letting go of Harley and starting the ignition. "Let's hit the road."

The stolen car pulled back onto the interstate and headed west, as behind it the newly risen sun began turning the New Jersey highway gold.

::

_(Tonight we'll leave all our stupid songs_

_We'll try and reach the hills by dawn_

_Someone has dressed us all like clowns)_


	2. Everything That Dies

Dress Me Like A Clown

By taste of violets

Disclaimer: Batman belongs to DC Comics, not to me. The song "Dress Me Like A Clown" is the property of the band Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. The songs "Pancho and Lefty" and "Atlantic City," both quoted in this chapter, are by Townes Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen respectively.

Note: This is set in the DC animated universe and takes place a year or so after the episode "Harley and Ivy," after which it diverts from canon entirely. For geography sticklers—Gotham City is New York City in this fic.

::

part two: everything that dies

_(Put on your stockings, baby_

_The night's getting cold)_

::

When Harley had moved in with Ivy for the first time, Ivy remembered, she had been surprised by how immediately natural Harley's presence had felt. Back then they had been all but strangers to each other, yet their life at Toxic Acres had felt familiar from the very beginning. The unexpected happiness of those days—lounging around in pajamas and cast-off T-shirts; Harley drawing pictures or poring through old magazines with a child's fascination while Ivy cooked dinner; washing and drying dishes together with the wordless peace of a married couple—those memories had remained with Ivy long afterwards, souvenirs of a quiet, domestic contentment she had never thought she would feel.

At the time, trying to explain it to herself, Ivy had reasoned that it was just the natural ability of people—even people like herself—to adapt quickly to changing situations. Move a plant to a new pot, to new soil, to a new diet or a new source of light, and it will find different ways to grow in its altered environment. Why shouldn't people do the same thing?

But much deeper down, at the level where understanding grows roots far beneath logic, Ivy knew that wasn't all there was to it. Adaptation meant survival, not happiness; and happy was what Ivy had been. That had nothing to do with biological imperatives.

It had everything to do with Harley.

And Ivy felt the same way now, as she sped along the endless ribbon of Interstate 80 with Harley singing along to the radio by her side: that sense of something dangerously close to bliss, that feeling that even this—this gypsy highway life—could come to constitute something like a home.

Harley had grown tired of snipping at Ivy's hair hours ago. Now she was amusing herself by scanning through the radio, giving only half a minute or so to each station. She cranked the dial and found a far-off, staticky signal, a distant station playing an old country song. Ivy thought she recognized the tune from a long time ago, and she hummed along as she drove.

_(Livin' on the road, my friend,_

_Was gonna keep you free and clean_

_Now you wear your skin like iron_

_And your breath's as hard as kerosene…)_

Harley dropped her hand from the radio dial, then lowered her head onto Ivy's shoulder and left it there.

They were quiet for a while, with no sound but the man on the radio singing between them.

_(And all the federales say_

_They could've had 'em any day_

_They only let 'em slip away_

_Out of kindness, I suppose…)_

Harley sat up as they passed out of range and the radio signal dissolved into static. "I'm hungry," she announced. "Is it lunchtime yet?"

"Who knows?" The clock on the dash was broken, blinking 0:00. "Anyway, where do you think we are, Arkham? There's no schedule, lunchtime is whenever you want." Ivy changed lanes to pass a semi. "What are you hungry for?"

"I dunno…" Harley considered, then snapped her fingers. "I got it! I want a hamburger, a really big greasy one!" She turned to Ivy to entreat her. "Can we go to Mickey D's, Ivy? Can we, _ple-e-ease_?"

"Harl, that's disgusting!"

"You don't have to watch me eat it. And you can get a salad or something! Don't they have salads there? I know they do. I think they do." Harley grabbed Ivy's arm with both hands. "Come on, Red, _pretty_ please?"

There was no question about whether or not Ivy was being manipulated; of course she was. Something ugly rose in her as she realized it, something that didn't like Harley's phony saccharine sweetness, her calculated coyness. She _knows_, Ivy thought, staring straight ahead at the road, she _knows_ I'm a fool for her. And she's using that against me, just for fun, just because she can. She's _playing_ me, playing some damn flirtatious little game while I'm—I'm—

"Ivy?" Harley said uncertainly. "Is something wrong?"

Ivy slammed her hand down onto the steering wheel, and at the same moment her anger faded away. Harley was staring at her, and when she glanced back into Harley's blue eyes, what she saw there looked sincere.

She's going to leave me, Ivy thought. Maybe she _isn't_ trying to play me. Maybe she means it all, at least at the moment she says it. But it doesn't matter—in the end, she'll still leave me.

Because she has him and me to choose between, and all I have is her.

She pulled over suddenly to the side of the road. She put her elbows on the wheel and rested her head in her hands. She took a deep breath and wondered what was happening. There was a heaviness deep in her chest, a pain like suffocation, like she was about to cry. But there was no way to let it out.

It had been _easy_ that time, the first time, when they had been strangers yet closer than lovers. It had been so easy to be happy.

"Red," said Harley's voice close by her ear, and blindly Ivy reached out and grabbed Harley, held on to her, pressed her face into Harley's shoulder, and still she didn't cry. She felt Harley's heartbeat against her own chest, and she tried to breathe, and for a moment their hearts were beating in rhythm, but Harley's was faster and after a second it left her behind.

"What did I do?" Harley was saying into her hair. "What did I do?"

You made me fall in love with you, Ivy thought. Look what you've done to me, look what you've turned me into. It was you, it was you. Always, it was you.

Out loud she said, "Nothing." She let go of Harley and sat up straight; she was too embarrassed to look at Harley's face. "We can go. It's fine. Let's go."

"No, I don't need a hamburger if it bothers you so much—"

A hamburger. Harley thought Ivy's heart had been broken by a fucking hamburger.

"I don't care about the burger," Ivy said brusquely, and jolted the car into gear. "We're going."

"But—"

Ivy's voice was a snarl. "Turn the radio on and _shut up_."

Harley jumped with a fearful reflex and did as she was told. The static hiss of white noise filled the car, eventually resolving itself into a guitar's strum and a harmonica's mournful wail.

_(Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold_

_But with you forever I'll stay_

_We're goin' out where the sand's turning to gold_

_Put on your stockings, baby, 'cause the night's getting cold_

_Everything dies, baby, that's a fact_

_But maybe everything that dies one day comes back…)_

Ivy reached to shift gears, and as she did, she brushed Harley's hand with her own. She tried to make her touch say everything that she wouldn't let herself say out loud.

_I'm sorry_, she tried to make it say. _Oh God, I'm so, so sorry._

Harley stared straight ahead.

_Maybe everything that dies one day comes back…_

They pulled off the highway as the radio sang on.

::

Ivy thought it would be safer to use the drive-through, but Harley was insistent on sitting inside. "Like real people," Harley said. "Like _society_. That's how we'll do things when we get to California." So Ivy helped Harley comb out her hair until it covered half her face, and they found a pair of oversized sunglasses for Ivy in the glove compartment.

But as they ordered at the counter, Ivy wondered with a jolt of panic if it had been enough. The spray-tanned teenager manning the cash register kept staring at Ivy, her mouth slightly agape. Ivy pushed her sunglasses further up her nose. But the expression on the cashier's face, she realized a second afterward, wasn't really one of recognition. It looked more like amusement.

A few more people seemed to stare with smirks on their faces as Ivy carried her tray to an empty booth, and Ivy felt her face growing hot. They must be able to see, she thought, it must be obvious from my face. They can see I'm a fool for her. They're laughing at the clown.

She set the tray down on a table and slid into the booth. Harley, following close behind, sat down on the opposite side. Her face was burning crimson.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Ivy," Harley said, her voice small and tentative. "I think it's your hair."

"What?" Ivy said again, in confusion this time.

"Your hair. They're laughing at the haircut I gave you."

Oh. In the car, when Harley had cut it while Ivy was driving. They had been laughing then. That was a long time ago.

She left the booth and went into the women's room to look in the mirror. Her hair looked as if a six-year-old had cut it. It was jagged and wildly uneven, cut down to a few inches in some places and left longer in others, and around the sides random tufts jabbed out like quills on a porcupine. Ivy supposed it might look funny to some people.

She looked at her reflection a while longer, but she didn't feel inclined to smile, or to be upset, or even to wonder how Harley had made such a mess. She didn't feel much of anything at all.

When she went back to the booth, Harley was staring up at her guiltily, her eyes wide and her mouth full of French fries. "Are you mad?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"No, I'm not mad. I don't care."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm very sure."

"Okay," Harley said in obvious relief, and went back to demolishing her burger and fries.

Ivy watched her for a minute, then picked up her cup of coffee from the tray and looked at it. She didn't drink coffee very often. She took a swig; it tasted like dirt. She wasn't sure if that was normal.

"Ah wan' a crown," said Harley, through a mouthful of burger.

"Too bad. That's Burger King."

"Oh yeah." Harley crammed another enormous bite into her mouth. "Do ya really only want coffee? We didn't even eat breakfast, and it's after noon already."

"It is?" Ivy looked behind her at the clock on the wall. Harley was right; it was close to one in the afternoon. It was eleven hours ago that the phone had rung and Ivy had answered. Eight hours ago that she had woken up to find Harley out of bed, and together they had come up with this insane idea. Eight hours—it felt like a year. "I guess I'm not too hungry."

"Boy, I sure was," Harley said as she swallowed the last of her burger. "I still am." Harley's face lit up. "Hey, can I get a milkshake?"

Ivy reached into her pocket for the six one-dollar bills folded up there. Earlier, in the car, she had peeled them off the roll of bills hidden in a Ziploc bag in her purse. Now she handed two dollars to Harley. "Get the smallest size. We're on a budget."

"How much money do we have?"

"Enough," Ivy said quickly. "But just to be on the safe side, okay?"

"Well, sure, but how much—"

"Hold still, there's something on your face." Ivy leaned forward and wiped at a spot next to Harley's mouth with her hand. Her fingers came away sticky and red; she showed them to Harley.

Harley looked aghast. "I'm bleeding?"

"No. Ketchup. Go get your shake."

Harley left with her two dollars. Ivy watched her go. Then she licked her fingers.

::

They had crossed out of Pennsylvania and were making inroads into Ohio, still coasting on the remains of the tank of gas they had been stretching out all day. They had stolen it from the garage at the motel, long ago this morning, after Ivy had kissed the clerk into dazed acquiescence. That had been, she and Harley had promised each other, their final theft, and Ivy's initial burst of joy upon hitting the interstate this morning had come in part from the adrenaline rush accompanying that vow.

In the old days it had been crime, not honesty, that used to give Ivy a rush. But that had been before Harley.

Harley. Lying curled up in the seat beside her, just waking up from an afternoon doze. "Feeling all right?" Ivy asked her.

"Uh-huh." Harley let out a huge yawn. "You must be tired too, huh, Red? You want me to drive while you sleep for a while?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Really? You sure?"

"Yes."

"Because it's startin' to feel like a long day, and I know—"

"_Leave_ it, Harley; I said I'm fine, goddammit."

Ivy wished she could take it back as soon as she said it. Through the silence that followed, she kept her eyes on the road. She was feeling sick, and she was trying to fight it down.

When Harley spoke again, it was with an edge to her voice. "Do you not trust me enough to let me drive? What do you think, that I'm gonna turn around and drive back?"

"What I think," said Ivy, staring straight ahead, "is that there's a reason why you haven't let me cut your hair yet."

Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy saw Harley flinch. In all her life Ivy had never met someone whose face was so easy to read.

"I told you," Harley said, a tremor in her voice. "I _do_ want you to cut it. I'm just waitin' till we get to California, that's all."

"Sure." Ivy's voice came out sounding oddly flat, not sarcastic as she had intended, but devoid of any affect whatsoever. "Sure you are."

She glanced over her shoulder and began changing lanes to pass a semi. She noticed that her hands seemed to be trembling slightly on the steering wheel, though from caffeine or hunger or lack of sleep, she didn't know.

She observed them detachedly, as if they belonged to someone else. As she moved back into the center lane, Harley's left hand covered one of the hands on the steering wheel, and Ivy was vaguely surprised that she could feel it, that her hand didn't belong to a stranger after all.

"Red, pull over for a minute, willya?"

"Why?"

"Your hands are shaking like crazy. Trust me—just for a second, can'tcha just _trust_ me for one second? Pull over, just do it."

Ivy did it. As soon as Ivy stopped the car, Harley took both her hands and held them. They _were_ shaking, and shaking badly. Ivy could feel it now.

"Ivy," Harley asked her, "are you okay?"

Ivy wondered if Harley knew that it had been over a year since anyone had asked her that.

It was the kind of question that invited a lie in response. But a year was a long time. A long time to be working alone in a city full of enemies. A long time to pretend not to be in love with the girl you left in the loony bin. A long time to be on your own.

Ivy didn't want to lie anymore.

_Trust me_, Harley had said. So Ivy did.

"I don't really know anymore," she said. "But I think I _could_ be okay, as long as you're with me."

She looked at Harley's face, always so instantly readable, to see what response was written there. Searching for a smile that meant that Harley was about to laugh it off, make it all a joke. Or a flash of fear that would tell Ivy that she had gone farther than Harley knew how to handle.

But all that Ivy saw in Harley's expression was something that looked like determination.

"Okay," Harley said.

And that was all. After a second Ivy gave a tiny nod, and Harley released her hands and let Ivy pull back out onto the highway.

Neither of them said, This isn't going to work. Neither of them said, Two breakdowns in one day means things aren't okay.

Neither of them said, Do you need me like I need you?

::

_(Tonight we'll drink into an early grave_

_We'll laugh and we will not be saved_

_Someone has dressed us all like clowns)_


	3. Nothing I'd Say

Dress Me Like A Clown

By taste of violets

Disclaimer: Batman is the property of DC Comics. The song "Dress Me Like a Clown" is the property of the band Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. This chapter also quotes Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City." I claim no right to either song or to anything Batman-related, just a debt of gratitude for the inspiration.

Nnote: This fic is set in the DC animated universe and takes place about a year after the end of the episode "Harley and Ivy," after which it diverts from canon entirely. For anyone as nitpicky about geography as I was while writing this fic (thanks for everything, GoogleMaps), Gotham is New York City in this story.

::

part three: nothing I'd say

_(Baby it's time I paid for my crime_

_Nothing I'd say could make you mine)_

::

It shouldn't have to be like this, poisonous and painful. That much Ivy was sure of, as the car chased the sinking sun westward. Love shouldn't have to mean dodging punches, running scared. She had to find a way to make it better.

She felt brittle, wasted, a dried-out stem, when she looked at Harley in the seat beside her with the bruise still dark around her eye. She felt like she might break at any moment. And all the time there was Harley, looking languid yet wound up tight as a spring, unpredictable and undeniable. One minute looking into Ivy's eyes and promising to stay, the next minute shrinking from her touch.

Ivy had to make her see that this time was different. She would never be like the last keeper of Harley's heart. There had to be a way to tell her—no, not to tell her; there were some things Ivy could never say. But a way to _show_ her, to make Harley understand what Ivy was offering. To show what lay in her heart, what Ivy longed to let out, if only the old venomous habits weren't in the way.

When Harley touched her shoulder, Ivy almost jumped. "_What_?" she shouted.

"Don't yell at me!" Harley squeaked.

"You—just startled me."

"I was just tryin' to tell you we're outta gas, that's all." Harley pointed to the gauge. She was right; it was hovering on E.

"Damn. I guess it's finally time we fill up." Ivy glanced at Harley, and forced herself to say it. "Sorry." She cleared her throat. "Thanks."

"Sure," Harley said coolly. She was staring out the window, her arms folded tight across her chest.

Ivy felt the resurgence of that old familiar ache. "Harl," she said.

"Hm?" The same chilly indifference.

Ivy's hand moved almost on its own, like a sunflower leaning toward the light. Her fingers lit softly on Harley's shoulder, and trailed down her arm in silent entreaty.

Harley's arms unfolded, and Ivy felt her heart rise in hope. But then Harley pulled away, her shoulders slumping as she leaned her forehead against the window.

"Sweetheart," said Ivy.

"Just drive the car, please," Harley said quietly.

She didn't lift her head as Ivy took the next exit, found the gas station and pulled up beside a pump. Ivy left her in the car.

She stared blankly at the numbers on the pump as she waited for the tank to fill, wondering what she could say to Harley that could make things right again. How was it that every time things started to get better, she did the wrong thing? Whenever Harley got close, some instinct took over, and Ivy frightened her away again.

It was right to be hard, to be cruel and cold and too sharp to touch, when you were in Arkham or on the lam in Gotham, out there against the Bat and the cops and the loonies. Nobody could blame Ivy for that. It was what you had to do to survive.

But Harley wasn't like that. She was warm, she was sweet, she wanted to love without the stab in the back at the end. She believed in things Ivy had quit believing in years ago.

And Ivy had been one of those things.

It was because of Harley that Ivy was different now. Harley had changed her, picked off her thorns, found a gentleness inside her that Ivy had thought was long gone. Of course there had been a price: Ivy had made a fool of herself more than once for this girl; she had turned her back on the things that used to matter most to her, left behind the city where she was feared and respected for some new place where she would be just another nameless face. But Harley was worth it. It was all worth it, as long as Harley was by her side.

And yet—now everything was going wrong. Now that she had Harley all to herself, with nothing between them but a whispered word, a brush of hands, a few final inches on a hotel bed, she couldn't get it right. She longed for Harley, ached for her, opened her heart up and reached for her, and then just as Harley reached back she found herself retreating, snapping shut like a trap. Her old Gotham ways came back, mean and cold and deadly. She didn't know how to let herself be the Ivy that Harley had believed was inside her.

And she could find no words to say that would make things right.

The pump handle gave a jolt in Ivy's hand, and she hung it back up. She opened the car door to get her purse and the Ziploc bag of cash hidden inside it.

But when she opened the door, Harley was already sitting in the driver's seat. Clutching Ivy's open purse, the baggie of cash sticking out of it. Harley's face so pale it was almost white.

"Two hundred fifty-three dollars," said Harley, "and ninety-one cents."

"You," Ivy began weakly, then had to start over— "You weren't supposed to find it."

"I'm not a _kid_!" Harley snarled, two bright red spots appearing high on her cheekbones as she got out of the car to stand face-to-face with Ivy. "You were gonna hide this from me? For how long? You told me you had money! You said it from the very beginning!"

"I said I had _some_ money," Ivy heard her own voice say, as she stood there hating herself.

"I believed you when you said we could do this! Two hundred and fifty dollars? That's not even enough for gas! What were we supposed to do when we ran out of money?"

"I thought we might…pick some more up somewhere…"

"You _bitch_," said Harley, and Ivy felt the word—nothing she hadn't been called a hundred times before—pierce her heart and lodge there like a bullet. She had never heard it Harley say it.

"You _told_ me we were going straight," Harley said. "I _trusted_ you. And you didn't mean it for a second!"

"I did," Ivy said, but her voice barely came out above a whisper. "I did mean it—I didn't know how we would do it, but I believed it, because you believed it…"

Harley stared at her, then let out a laugh. An awful, bleak laugh. "And I thought we were gonna make honest women of each other."

"Harl, I—"

"Shut up. I _believed_ in you. And you were just another liar the whole time. Just like everybody else."

"No," said Ivy, "no, no, no," and she actually had to lean against the car for a moment as a wave of faintness came and went. "You—it's your fault, you've been playing me for an idiot—you said you would never go back to him when I knew all along, I _knew—_"

"Knew what? You don't know anything, you just think you do. You were so _sure_ I'd go back to him. I told you I wouldn't, and you still wouldn't trust me!" Harley flung Ivy's purse on the ground. "And we're stuck in the middle of Ohio with two hundred and fifty dollars, like that's going to get us anywhere! Two hundred and fifty dollars to get us all the way to California! Are you _insane_?"

"_Yes_!" Ivy shouted back. "Yes I am! I must be! And you're the one who made me that way! Twice I thought you'd stay with me. Twice so far you've gone back to him! He'll _kill_ you, Harley, and you pretend it's a game! What was I supposed to do? I had to get you away from him, I had to come up with something. To help you!"

"Don't do me any favors," Harley spat, and for a second Ivy felt like slapping her.

But she didn't. "I'm saving your life," she said instead. "If that makes me crazy, fine." And yet that wasn't the real reason, and she still hadn't said it; she still hadn't told Harley the simple truth.

"Saving my life? You don't know anything about me," Harley said, her bruised face violet in the light of the setting sun. "You don't even _believe_ in anything. Not me. Not yourself. Nothing."

Yet even when she tried to close herself up, Harley didn't know how to be cold. Ivy could see, could almost _feel_ where the warmth was trying to get out.

"But _you_ did," Ivy said. "You believed in me."

"Yeah. Because I'm a gullible idiot."

"No. Because you're—you're an angel. You see what people can be, even people like me. Harley, I—I need you." Not good enough. This one time, she had to say the right thing. "Harley, I love you," Ivy said.

Harley didn't smile. She just stared.

"I'm in love with you," said Ivy. "And I think it's driving me crazy."

The words lingered in the air like late summer heat. Two long shadows lay motionless on the faded asphalt.

Finally Harley let out a long sigh. "Oh boy," she said, and threw Ivy's purse into the front seat. "What are we gonna do now, Red?"

And that was how Ivy knew that against all odds, she had been forgiven.

"We're gonna knock this place over," Ivy said in a low voice, "one last score. And this time, I _swear_, Harl, this'll be it. We'll take this money and make it to California, and we'll start over. I promise you, you'll never have to do this again after tonight."

"Neither of us," Harley interjected. "I want us _both_ to start over."

"I—" Ivy hesitated. "I'm not sure if I can promise that. If something goes wrong, I might have to do something I—I don't want to do. But you, Harley, I swear to God, this is the last time you'll ever have to do this." She took Harley's hand. "Believe me, Harl, one more time. I don't deserve it, but believe me anyway."

She held her breath for a second, until she felt Harley squeeze her hand back. "Okay," Harley said, and Ivy's heart bloomed like a rose.

"All right," said Ivy, "let's get in the car, and I'll tell you the plan." And she did have a plan, or at least the start of one. It was easy now, knowing what she had to do. Knowing Harley needed her.

"It'll be a cinch," Ivy said. "Tiny place like this in the middle of nowhere, they'll only have one person on duty. He knows there's a car here, but he couldn't have seen our faces from that window. See where the counter is? All right. I'll go in there first and kiss the cashier after he opens the register. When I say go, you run in and grab the cash. Don't talk, just run in and get started."

"I'll have my mask on, right?"

"Not your domino mask. I don't want them to know you're anybody special." Ivy was rummaging around in the back seat, opening her suitcase. She turned around with a pair of black pantyhose and, in her other hand, a Swiss Army knife. She slashed off one leg of the hose and tossed it to Harley. "There. Put this on."

As an afterthought she remembered about her hair—Harley's handiwork would attract too much attention. She looked in the rearview mirror and used her Swiss Army scissors to hack off the long patches; now it was a sloppy pixie cut, unattractive but less memorable.

"Does the stocking thing actually work?" Harley's voice was muffled through the fabric as she readjusted it over her head.

"It'll be good enough for this job." Ivy snipped a last troublesome patch out of her hair and slipped three twenties into her pocket. She was just making sure she had her lipstick in her other pocket when Harley, pulling off the stocking, said, "Wait. What about you?"

Ivy glanced up, but couldn't quite meet Harley's eye. "What _about_ me?"

"You'll be caught on the security camera. They'll track us down, they'll find you!"

"They won't find me." She got out of the car and shut the door.

Harley followed her out. "What if the GCPD hears about it? Or—or _Batman_? He won't stop until he finds you!" Harley's voice was rising in panic. "Red, what are we gonna _do_?"

"Nothing!" Ivy grabbed Harley's shoulders. "Stop _worrying_. So maybe the Ohio cops tell the Gotham cops, or the Bat noses in, and everybody finds out I'm not in Gotham anymore. Big deal. By that time I'll be long gone."

Ivy felt Harley's shoulders stiffen under her hands and realized her mistake a second too late. "I mean _we'll_ be long gone."

Harley brushed Ivy's hands away and looked her straight in the face. Ivy felt her heart beat harder.

"If we do this, Red," Harley said, "I'm in for good. You get that, right?"

"Sure." Ivy's face felt as hot as the car's hood. Harley had never looked at her like this before, holding her gaze and refusing to let go.

"I know I've run out on you before," Harley said, and her voice sounded different, stronger than usual. "But it's not gonna be like that this time. It's not _you_ anymore, now it's _we_."

Ivy's heart was an animal inside her chest, pounding against its cage.

"I know you've been tryin' to protect me, but I'm not a kid. What I need is for you to _trust_ me." Harley reached out and took Ivy's hand. "Do ya trust me, Ivy?"

Ivy moistened her lips. Her hand was sweaty in Harley's grasp.

"Ivy?" Harley's eyes were bluer than a summer sky, than the Atlantic from the boardwalk, than the halo over the Gotham skyline at night.

"Yes," Ivy managed, almost dizzy with desire. "Yes, I trust you."

"Good," Harley said, and Ivy thought there was something strange in her voice, but it was hard to pay attention when Harley was grabbing her arms and turning her around to face the gas station doors. "Then go," Harley said, and pushed Ivy forward.

She shook off the nerves as she walked toward the glass doors. It wasn't hard to do. She had robbed banks and museums and galleries, after all. A gas station was nothing. She put on her lipstick as she opened the door and sauntered in as if she had something else on her mind. It was easy, because she did. She was thinking of Harley. She could spend the rest of her life doing nothing but thinking of Harley.

Just one cashier at the counter, nobody else in the store. Ivy had been right. She'd always had a feel for this.

"Can I help you?"

"Gas on tank six." She leaned against the counter and feigned interest in her fingernails. Easy. Take it easy. She slid a glance toward the glass doors. Harley was outside, standing against the wall.

"Thirty-nine eighty-four." The cashier looked only a year or two past thirty, already balding a little, but not so bad-looking besides that. Probably a nice guy, maybe married. Ivy almost felt a little sorry for what she had to do.

She reached into her pocket for the three twenties and handed them all to the cashier. He rang up the sale and the register drawer shot open. Then he turned to her with the bills still in his hand and said, "Looks like you gave me too many—"

Ivy grabbed the money back, yanked him forward, and kissed him hard before he knew what was happening. She only broke it off for an instant to yell over her shoulder, "Har— Honey, _now_!" before crushing his lips into hers again.

Harley sprinted into the store with the black stocking over her head and a white paper bag in her hand. She raked a hand through Ivy's hair as she vaulted over the counter and started transferring money into the bag from the open register.

But Ivy barely noticed Harley's fingers on her skin. And that, she realized later, was the most obvious sign possible that something was very wrong.

Ivy worked primarily by instinct. Experiments and calculations weren't as important as getting the _feel_ for when the trick was working. And she sensed right away that something wasn't going right this time.

At first she wasn't worried. There were people who didn't give in immediately. Some struggled. Some who had particularly strong willpower might require a great deal of effort. Ivy had learned how to deal with them.

But this man wasn't like them. He wasn't pushing back; he was pushing _forward_. He was too into it. Too far, too fast.

He had one hand slithering up the front of her blouse, another sliding around her back, his tongue jammed down her throat. His mouth tasted like nicotine and stale beer, sweat and dirt and small-town hopelessness, and something else. Something worse.

It was the naiveté, the ease with which he had fallen into the trap. She felt the mindlessness of his kiss, and she tasted her own dishonesty. She thought of Harley, of hands and lips and bruises. The lies she had told, the promises she had broken—and even now—

All at once it was too much. She pulled away from the kiss and twisted out of his grip. "Hey! This is a stickup, not a sex act, moron. Open the other register and the safe."

Suddenly unsure, he stared at her. Ivy stared back, as steadily as she could. She had taken a risk, she knew. She might have jolted him out of the trance; she might have destroyed whatever chance they had. But she couldn't do anything else. She couldn't have taken another second.

It was a sort of hypnosis. Just a combination of toxins and pheromones and practice and luck. It wasn't about sex, not really. It wasn't like being a whore. It wasn't like telling a lie.

It made her feel dirty anyway.

It was time to leave all that. She was in love with a girl who made her heart feel like spring, who had trusted and forgiven her even when she had least deserved it. She was in love with a girl who was the only one she'd ever want again.

"Listen to me," she said, confident and clear, her eyes fixed on the cashier's. "Nothing is wrong. Everything will be fine. Just open the register and the safe, and it'll all be okay."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harley standing motionless beside the empty register, tense with uncertainty, holding tightly to the paper bag. Ivy wanted to smile at her, reassure her, but they couldn't afford that. She kept her eyes on the cashier. Focused all her willpower on him.

And then, almost too suddenly, she had won—she felt him give in, and he walked toward the second register and entered the code to open it. Ivy nodded at Harley, and Harley started raiding the register as the cashier came back to Ivy like a sleepwalker.

"Good job," Ivy said sweetly. "But wasn't there something else? Didn't I tell you to open the safe next?"

But something wasn't right. She could see him struggling, could see realization beginning to flicker in his vacant stare. His eyes strayed from Ivy's and fell onto Harley, just as she finished raking the last of the bills out of the register.

"No," Ivy said sharply, "look at me, _look_ at me_—_don't you _dare—_"

It was all coming apart. She had no hold over him anymore. Harley barely managed to dart out of the way as the cashier made a grab for her.

And Ivy felt rage consume her like a forest fire. "Hey!" She sprang onto the counter and over the other side, and took the cashier by the front of his shirt. "You son of a bitch," she snarled at him, "don't _ever_ touch my girl."

And then she kissed him, because it was the only weapon she had. She kissed him, and into that kiss she put every bitter burning ember of hatred she had for him, for him and his dead-end job in a dead-end town where there wasn't any hope left for anyone anywhere. She kissed him with all the hatred she had for herself, too, for the lies she had told Harley, for the ugliness of her anger, for the glib ease of her broken promises, for how hard it had been to say _I love you_ and how much harder it had been to say _I trust you_. She kissed him because she loved a girl she didn't deserve.

And when she pulled away from him and spat "Motherfucker," she realized she was crying.

She was still crying as she ran out of the store to the car where Harley was already waiting in the driver's seat. Slamming the door as Harley hit the gas, she sobbed like a child.

And she knew she could never do this again. She might, as she had told Harley, have to go back to crime when they reached California. Maybe sooner, depending on how much money they'd gotten tonight. But not like this. Never again like this.

Harley tore down the interstate toward Indiana faster than Ivy had ever seen her drive. She put mile after mile between them and the gas station, shushing Ivy all the while, driving with one hand and stroking Ivy's hair with the other. Even after Ivy stopped crying, Harley kept petting her hair, just as Ivy had run her hands through Harley's hair as they stared out the hotel window on the outskirts of Gotham City twelve hours ago, twelve years ago, a lifetime ago.

"Long gone, just like you said, Red," Harley told her over and over as they crossed the state line. "Remember how you told me? We're long gone. Forget about Ohio. That's far behind us now."

But Ivy didn't think it could ever be far enough.

::

They didn't stop for food or gas or coffee. When it got dark Harley turned on the headlights and kept driving. They didn't speak much to each other. There didn't seem to be much left to say. It had been a very long day.

At one point Ivy counted up the money in the paper bag. They had stolen four hundred and seventeen dollars.

Later Ivy lay back half-asleep and through the vague haze of a dream she heard Harley singing in her reedy little voice:

_Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold_

_But with you forever I'll stay…_

They finally stopped at a run-down motel somewhere in the great expanse of nothingness between Chicago and the Iowa border. At the desk Ivy shoved a wad of cash at the clerk without looking in his eyes. She didn't want to see what he thought. The man handed Harley the key.

Their room was shabby and overlooked the parking lot. As soon as they walked in Harley sat down on the bed and said, "This is the farthest west I've ever been."

Ivy set the white paper bag on the nightstand. She sat on the bed next to Harley and tried to take her hand. She was clumsy and awkward doing it, like a thirteen-year-old boy.

Harley stood up and let go of Ivy's hand, but she did it gently. "I gotta take a shower," she said.

Ivy lay on her back on top of the thin comforter and stared blankly at the ceiling as she listened to the endless drum of running water from the bathroom. When her eyes fell closed and she slept for the first time since five that morning, she dreamed uneasily of money and coffee and honest cops and the bruise around Harley's eye.

When she opened her eyes, the room was dark and she had no idea where she was. She lay very still and gazed at the ceiling and waited for the sleep-amnesia to pass. Another motel room.

She would die someday in a motel room. For a minute she could see it all quite clearly, like a movie. She would die on the run, in some dump on the edge of the city, staring at a ceiling like this one. Nobody would really notice, except for the Bat, who noticed everything, and maybe Jim Gordon, who would be glad. They would cremate her out of fear of poison, and they would throw the ashes in a ditch somewhere, and then forget about her. The ashes would help the plants grow stronger and taller, and the plants would remember her for a while. And then there would be nothing left of her at all.

And then she rolled over and saw Harley lying beside her, and she remembered everything.

"Hey, Red," Harley said softly. She was curled up under the covers, gazing at Ivy, and somehow even in the dark her eyes seemed to shine. "There's room under the blanket."

Ivy slid beneath the covers. She thought Harley must be able to hear how loudly her heart was pounding.

"I didn't wanna wake you up," Harley whispered. "Were you having a nice dream?"

Ivy put a hand on either side of Harley's face. There was nothing she could say to express her relief, her happiness; no words she could find to tell Harley how it felt to have her lying there beside her.

So she pulled Harley's face close, and she kissed her. She kissed her long and slow, her hands twining in Harley's hair. And when Ivy began to draw away, Harley pulled her back and kissed her again, slow and sweet and somehow sad, Harley's lips moving as if mouthing the words to a song she wanted to remember. She ran her hands slowly down Ivy's body, and the strange fierce intensity of her touch made Ivy wonder if Harley were trying to _learn_ her, to memorize the way Ivy felt, every bend and curve and hollow.

Ivy lifted her head back. "I wish," she murmured thickly, "I just—I wish I could _tell_ you—"

And Harley whispered against Ivy's throat, "So _show_ me."

So Ivy showed her. She took everything she had no words for, everything she could never say, and she put it into every kiss, every touch, saying it with every part of herself. And when she was finished, when she had done all she could to make Harley understand, they lay together and Ivy imagined the highway like a long dark ribbon, and at the end there was the sun setting red and orange and violet over the California hills, and there was a little house overlooking the ocean with orchids growing in the garden; and her thoughts turned into dreams until at last she was asleep with her hand still tangled in Harley's hair.

::

When she awoke the bed was empty and Harley's clothes were gone. There was no paper bag on the nightstand. Ivy walked over to the window, but she didn't have to look to know that the car wasn't there.

As she turned away she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror across the room. It was an unfamiliar face that looked back at her. She looked at the stranger's face for a long time.

She looked back out the window again, at the place where the car had been, but there was nothing there. Out on the road the early-morning semis were already trundling down the highway, their drivers sipping coffee and switching on the radio. They were people who knew where they needed to go. Ivy wondered what it was like to be one of them.

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[final note: An enormous thank you to everyone who read this story, favorited me, and—especially—left reviews. I spent almost a year and a half on this story (planning crimes is hard), and everyone's encouragement kept me determined to see it through to the end. If you made it all this way, please do me a huge favor and take a minute to let me know what you thought. I'd like to write about these two again sometime, and any input would be a big help. Thank you again!]


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